


Ever/Always

by MasterOfAllImagination



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Slow Burn, elements of an epistolary in the form of letter-writing, hint: hers is better, i'm not fucking joking about the angst guys, i'm sorry i keep changing the description but i really hate it, ias and i both started writing our fics around the same time based on the same headcanon, just remember that before you go comparing them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-07 16:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3177153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOfAllImagination/pseuds/MasterOfAllImagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You can lock away a great many things in a crimson chest, but not memories.  You cannot store memories, no matter now precious, no matter how fleeting.  </i>
</p>
<p>For twenty years, Bard and Thranduil express the feelings that they cannot act upon through letters.  But death comes to Dale sooner than Thranduil had anticipated, and, in the end, the pain of loving paper and ink becomes worse than the pain of not-loving flesh and blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Late Fall  2962; Late Fall 2941

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off of [this](http://cutlerbeckettt.tumblr.com/post/107764657960/) headcanon that myself and [inkaijuwetrust](http://inkaijuwetrust.tumblr.com) were discussing on tumblr a few days ago. The brilliant[ Ias](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias) got to it before me, though, and wrote [ this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3173066) lovely fic that is ten times better than mine, so you'd better just click through the link and ignore the rest of this.
> 
> ...but if you're still here, please; by all means-- read on. This first chapter is boring, plot-less, and a bit heavy-handed in the symbolism area, but it'll (probably) get better.

Bard brushed his fingertips over the outlandish cherry-wood chest.  An equally strange metal inlaid with obsidian bound it width-wise, with a stout lock set into the middle-most strip.  After a moment of hesitation, he went to his belt for the key he kept chained there and unlocked it with the grace of twenty years' near-daily repetition. 

Inside the chest lay row upon row of folded pieces of parchment.  Some were tied with thin silken cords while others lay loose.  Bard tucked the paper he had been perusing back among its meticulously collected fellows, eyes lingering over their serried ranks before lowering the lid and re-locking the chest.  He returned the key to his belt and hid it deftly behind a heavy woolen cloak. 

Bard strode from the room, drawing the cloak close around himself.  Outside the walls of the King of Dale's manor, a horrid half-frozen slush fell relentlessly from the slate-grey sky, rendering foot travel nearly nonexistent and turning the dirt roads outside the city's gates into difficult-- but not impassible-- mud.  He grimaced when the first cold splatters hit his shoulders, and kept that grimace all the way along the parapet to the east gate.

He found that the guard stationed there shared in his distaste of the weather.  

“Afternoon,” Bard greeted. 

The guard came sharply to attention. “Afternoon, m'lord,” he returned. 

Bard nodded, forcing a faint smile.  He made a rueful glance skyward.  “Miserable out, isn't it?”  

The guard scoffed, relaxing slightly. "With all due respect, my lord, you don't know the meaning of it."

"I'm sure I don't.  Any activity from the east?"  

"Travelers?" He bristled as though the idea offended him with its absurdity.  "Not in this weather, I hazard." 

"Messengers, then?" Bard tried, although he knew it was a futile hope.  

"None of them either."  

Bard allowed himself a very small sigh before forcing himself to smile once again at the guard.  "Thank you, my friend.  Stay warm."  He clapped him on the shoulder and then took his leave, sparing a dark glare at the sky for its trouble, and drew the cloak around himself once more.  The expected messenger from Mirkwood had probably delayed his departure in the hopes of clearer skies and firmer ground upon the morning.  Bard was a reasonable man and could hardly begrudge him his delay, but he failed entirely to suppress his  _un_ reasonable impatience.  

He returned to his study half-wet and immediately shed his cloak, laying it on a chair in front of the fireplace to dry.  He rubbed his hands in front of the dying flames, blowing on them a bit for good measure, and then he went to his desk and sat.  Papers lay scattered across it-- mostly old blotting paper and discarded drafts of this or that official correspondence.  All of the important papers he kept safely in the desk's drawers, neatly organized and hidden away from the prying eyes of the traders he sometimes received to his study instead of the great hall.   

For a while, he put his elbows upon the desk and let his head rest heavily in his hands, and he would have stayed that way, fighting off an impending headache, had a hard knock at his door not startled him upright.

“Come," he called, sitting straighter in his chair, knowing he looked less than regal with sleet-bedraggled hair but not willing to contribute to the picture any more by displaying bad posture. 

It was hard to tell which came first: the rain or the mud.  Both were strewn copiously about the wooden floors as the newcomer trudged in, water still running off his heavy leather traveling cloak, and approached the desk.  "News, my lord," he announced, "and the latest casualty report."  He laid down a sodden letter on the desk and pushed it towards Bard.

Bard knew his visitor-- he was an older guardsman who had once been a part of the Master's own militia.  But that had been nigh on twenty years ago, and he had proved his loyalty to Bard many times over in the years since.  Bard picked up the letter slowly, reluctance in every inch of his movement, and locked eyes with the guardsman.

“Let's have it, then, Elric." 

“Right," Elric began as Bard opened the letter.  "We're running low on haze- weed. The healers were very anxious that I tell you."  Bard nodded, inspecting the sodden letter.  The ink was fresh and had run slightly with the rain.   


 

> _Since sunrise:_
> 
> _Hargrave Olricson  
> _ _Mona Olricson  
> _ _Melanie Fischer  
> _ _Yvonne Rosechild  
> _ _Wyatt Arper  
> _ _Gretta Trevor  
> _ _Stilson Ewes_  
> 
> _Regards, Maude_

 

"That bad?" Elric asked.  Bard glanced up and schooled his face into something less resembling that of a condemned man.

"Not good," he muttered.  "What else did the healers have to say?" 

"Generic complaints about this damned weather," Elric said, playing with a few broken quills lying on the desk.  "Maude would like permission to send some of the healers into town to scrounge up a few more volunteers." 

"No."  Bard shook his head emphatically, dragging stray hairs across his vision.  "The people treat the healers no better than if they were sick themselves.  They will meet only with hostility if they leave the ward."  Bard grabbed a discarded slip of paper and an intact quill, scribbling something so quickly he left ink spots.  "Deliver this to Maude and tell her I will organize some of the townsfolk myself.  I will go door to door if I must." He thrust the missive into Elric's hand.  "Anything else?"

"Nay, my lord."  

"Alright.  Good afternoon."  

"My lord."  Elric bowed, a bend more from the torso than the waist, but Bard expected no more.  The guardsman turned on his heel and got halfway to the door before suddenly stopping.

"Elric?  Was there something else?"

"I've just remembered," he mumbled, rummaging in the pockets of his coat.  "Ah!" He turned, triumphantly, and held up another letter. "From Mirkwood.  Ran into the usual boy on my way here, told him I'd deliver it to you myself.  Poor thing looked half-drowned."  

Bard set his hands on the desk and half rose before he even realized what he was doing.  "I wasn't expecting him today," he said, holding out a hand that he hoped did not look too eager.  

Elric just shrugged.  "He wanted me to pass on his apologies for being late.  Quite a loyal one you've got there."  

"He's friends with my grandson," Bard murmured distractedly as he took the letter from Elric's outstretched hand.  He immediately sank back into his chair, his eyes flickering to the crimson chest resting on the corner of his desk.  "Why don't you go home," he suggested.  "Have your wife cook you something hearty."  

"My plans exactly," Elric said.  His gaze, too, had lingered for a moment on the wooden chest.  "Good afternoon, your majesty."

"Good afternoon."  

Bard waited until the last of his clumping footsteps had died away before he reached for the letter opener with a calm he did not feel.  The elven parchment was far more durable than the cheaply made stuff used by the men of Dale, and had weathered the rain in its waxed envelope extremely well.  Bard ran its smoothness between his fingers as he unfolded the letter and sat back in his chair, muscles in his neck he had not even realized were tense suddenly relaxing as he beheld the dark spirals of Thranduil's calligraphy.    

 

> _I write in haste in the hopes that your messenger may escape the worst of the weather’s ravages on his return journey.  Enclosed are the herbs I have promised.  There is but little hope that they shall be effective in dispelling the sickness that has plagued your people these past months, but nevertheless I fervently desire that you might find some temporary solace in this hope, even if it ultimately proves futile._
> 
> _Ever,  
> _ _T_

                 
A small linen pouch of dry, brittle grey herbs was indeed tucked inside the envelope.  It was just enough to test on two or three of the newest victims that lay in the ward at the outskirts of the city-- not enough to arouse any great collective optimism, but enough to maintain the illusion that a cure was possible.  It was the fourth of such bundles sent by Thranduil, and the Elvenking’s words did little to encourage the possibility that this one should prove any more effective than the last three. 

Bard carefully tucked the pouch into his coat before rummaging amongst the refuse of his desk in search of a quill with which to pen a reply.  
  


> _I wish your letter had brought me better news-- the bad sort is all I seem to hear of late.  I shall take these herbs to Maude as soon as I finish writing, and I will send word of their effects with the next messenger.  I haven’t the heart to send the poor lad out again in this weather.  When you receive this, forgive me for the delay._
> 
> _Always,_  
>  _B_

He pocketed both letters and crossed to the fire to don his still-damp cloak.  The way to the ward passed through half the city, and he would need its warmth.  

* * *

The crown was a three finger-widths band of gold that nestled heavy and low when it was placed upon his brow.  He stood, Gandalf’s serene gaze following him, and summoned every ounce of strength left in his weary knees to turn and face the dregs of Laketown gathered behind him.

Cheers rose from their ranks.  Bard swallowed thickly and clenched his fists within the sleeves of a brocaded tunic that was just barely too long for his arms.  He walked through them, as he had been instructed, passing with ease as he had once walked through lines of elven soldiers.  The occasional hand darted out to touch his hair or his clothes.  The effort it took not to flinch was almost more than he could bear.

He heard but could not see the footsteps of his children following him down from the dais of the great hall.  They were shy and fervent sounds, such as Bard had been wont to hear in their home in Laketown on nights when Sigrid could not sleep but did not want to wake her siblings, or when Bain occasionally snuck out with his friends to make minor mischief among the wharves. 

Bard stopped, turned, and swooped Tilda up into his arms, hefting her into the crook of his left elbow so he could take Bain’s hand with his right.  Sigrid walked tucked close by his side, and the cheers, if anything, became louder.

He would not begrudge them their merriment, for they deserved it all, and more.  There was to be a feast that night featuring Elvish wine and Dwarven music, and they would doubtless enjoy that even more.  They had fought well and been through much, but Bard would not join them in their revelry.  The path through the crowd and the ruined city streets was clear before him: to his children’s quarters, first; to ensure they were safe and sleeping soundly.  And then he would seek his own solitude. 

More people waited in the square outside.  They stood perched on rubble, the young sitting on the shoulders of their parents, the wounded and the healthy mixed. 

So many people, and yet so few.

_Too many people._

Bard kept his gaze focused straight ahead at torso-height of the gathered crowd.  He met no one’s eyes.  One foot in front of the other eventually led him back to the manor, up two flights of stairs, and into his children’s bedrooms.

They had had their pick of rooms-- spacious and private rooms, unlike the cramped quarters they had inhabited in Laketown-- but when he had come to gather them before the coronation he found that they had dragged three beds into one room and were intent upon keeping them there. 

“Can we still call you Da?” Tilda asked as she climbed into bed. 

Bard made a show of fussing with her blankets.  She squirmed a bit.  “Whatever else would you call me?”

“She was worried she’d have to call you ‘King Bard,’” Sigrid said.  She was already abed, her head propped up on her hand. 

Bard gave her a strained smile.  “Everyone else has to call me that,” he said as he turned to Tilda, “except you and your brother and sister.  Alright?”

“Yes, da,” Tilda said. 

“Good.”  He passed a hand over her hair.  “Sleep well.” 

“Night, da.”

And from his right came Sigrid and Bain’s echoes of “G’night.”

“Goodnight.” Bard dragged the door shut behind him.  Age and damp had warped it so that it no longer fit within the doorframe.  He paid it no heed.  With the master gone and the battle finished, no threats to his children’s welfare came to mind.

Given the revelry surely beginning elsewhere in the city, the halls of the manor of the previous Lord of Dale were dark and quiet by comparison.  He walked until he spied the light from the fire in the study seeping under the door and entered. It seemed an age since he had dressed for the coronation in the room.  In reality, it was naught but three hours ago. 

A desk stood at the far wall.  It had been Girion’s, once; or so he was told by some of the elders.  He ran a palm over its edges and found the chair, sinking into it like dirt sinks through muddied water.  With one hand he shucked off the crown and set it in front of him.  He watched it for a moment as it lay on the dark wood of the desk, every now then bouncing a flicker of firelight off of its smooth surface.  After a while he pushed it away and threaded his fingers through the hair at his subtly aching temples.  Whether it had been the pressures of the day or the unfamiliar weight of the crown that had caused the pain Bard knew not.  He merely wished it gone.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flutter of movement.  In an instant he was standing, hand going for quiver that was not wearing. 

The Elvenking, clad in the same crimson robes he had worn at the coronation, detached himself from the shadows at the side of the fire.  Bard relaxed infinitesimally. 

He sat again.  “A greeting would have been appreciated.”           

“You were preoccupied.”  Thranduil moved farther into the room, his hands trapped in the sleeves of his robes.  His expression would have been hard to guess in broad daylight let alone in the fickle illumination of the fireplace.  “Why do you not join in the celebrations, King Bard?”

“How did you get in here?” Bard asked instead.

In the dark, Thranduil’s movements were vague and indistinguishable.  “I entered through the door.  It was unlocked.”  In a series of steps that he could not keep track of Thranduil came to stand across the desk from Bard, the crown lying on its wood between them.  Silence stretched.  Bard looked from the crown to Thranduil, straightening in the chair, placing his hands on the armrest.

Bard broke the silence first.  “What bothers you, then, my lord Thranduil?”

“I thought to give you my counsel.” 

Bard huffed.  “I could use it,” he admitted. 

"To begin with," he announced, pointing a single perfect finger at the discarded crown,  “you must wear this always.” 

Bard looked into sharp and cunning eyes.  He found he could not hold their gaze.  “I am king,” he said.  “The people of Laketown will not forget that merely because I do not wear a crown.” 

Thranduil’s robes rustled as he reached for the gold band.  He lifted it as carefully as Gandalf had, both hands braced on either side as he circumnavigated the desk, coming to stand at Bard’s side.

“The people of Dale are no longer your only concern.  News of Smaug’s death has spread throughout the land.  Others will come to seek the mountain’s riches, and when they find that the dwarves have claimed it, they will come to _trade_ for it.” 

Bard did not miss the subtle correction.  He allowed Thranduil to replace the crown upon his head, pressing salt-and-pepper hair flat against his skull just above the spreading crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes.

“Middle-Earth will not see you as king unless it sees your crown as well.”

Bard touched one hand to it, his head tilted so that he could look up at the Elvenking towering over him.  There was no suitable response that his tired mind could formulate, so he settled for a small one-sided upward twitch of his mouth that did not reach his eyes. 

Thranduil held his look in the darkness for much longer than he had ever gazed at him before. This time, Bard held the look unflinchingly, nevertheless entirely at a loss to parse the meaning of Thranduil’s scrutiny.  Then he turned to leave.  His robes made soft slithering sounds over the old wooden floorboards.   

“I didn’t ask for this,” Bard called quietly.  The crown impeded the contraction of his brows.   

Thranduil stopped just short of the door at his words, casting a half-glance backward over his shoulder.  “Neither did I,” he said.  “And yet here we are.” 

With that, he left. 

Bard lingered in the room until the fire coughed its last ash. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dates are based on book-canon but for my use apply to film-canon. I know fuck-all about medicine in Middle Earth, and the last time I read the trilogy was in middle school. Please don't hate me; I tried. 
> 
> I'd like to be the person who finally writes the epic-length Barduil fic everyone on tumblr has been clamoring for, but then again I've been trying to write epic-length fic for _years_ , and so far the longest I've managed is 30k. Well. I guess I will just have to wait and see how my classes go and where my inspiration takes me.


	2. Early Summer 2943; Late Fall 2962

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the non-linear timeline: this fic spans a twenty-one-year interval between 2941 (just after the battle) to what (for this fic) is "present-day," which is 2962. The years in which each parts of the chapter take place will always be clearly labeled in the chapter title, and I don't anticipate doing anything more complicated with it than that. Hopefully you guys will have no trouble following along. 
> 
> On a side note, I'd like to give a shout-out to Ias, who has been extremely effusive in her praise for this fic. I am eternally grateful-- it's been such a huge source of motivation for me, THANK YOU!

“ _Waylaid_?”

“Aye, my lord.  Waylaid.  By bandits, mayhaps, although…” the guardsman trailed off, twisting a dirty riding cap between his equally filthy hands.  It was the dirt and the grime of the road mixed with something darker.  Perhaps blood, although Bard could not tell at this distance. 

“Tell me what you reckon,” Bard said.  “Do not be afraid.”  His fingers curled in a knuckle-whitening grip on the curved ends of the wooden chair he sat in at the head of the great hall. 

The guardsman forced the cap down by his sides.  “Well, m’lord, you see, we tracked the travelers right up into the outskirts of Mirkwood.  But about half a mile into the treeline, all trace vanished.  As though they were never even there.  No footprints.  No supplies.  No horses.  Like they just walked off into the air.”

The man stopped, but Bard sensed he was withholding something.  And so Bard waited, and said nothing, until the man finished of his own accord.

“Dark things move in Mirkwood these days.  People tell stories,” he said gruffly, scrutinizing the slate floor determinedly. 

Bard’s hands slipped from the arms of the chair to rest on his kneecaps.  “What’s your name, guardsman?”

“Elric, sir,” he replied, finally glancing up.

“Elric, then.”  Bard stood and stepped off the dais, drawing level with the man.  Upon further inspection, the cap was, in fact, bloody.  His brows knitted together, and he glanced up, wondering if Elric had seen the question in his eyes.  But Elric still stared hard at the floor.  “Nothing passes through the woodland realm that King Thranduil does not hear of,” he reassured him.  “Gather some hearty men.  If we make haste we may reach his halls by nightfall.”  

“ _We_ , my lord?”

“Aye, _we_.  Are you up to the task?”

“I-- of course, sir.  Of course.  I’ll gather the men.”

“See that you do.” 

* * *

He walked quickly through streets edged with litter-choked gutters.  Such sights did little to dispel the frown etched upon Bard by the miserable weather, but Thranduil’s letter lingered in his mind, the words on the page voiced in his head as though the Elvenking had spoken the entire thing directly in his ear. 

Bard was careful to keep his expression more open than he had in the presence of Elric.  Even at its weakest, hope was a powerful thing to the souls of the city, and the illusion of it even moreso. 

Those brave enough to continue their daily duties in such a deluge acknowledged him with slight nods of the head, each of which he returned, wishing that he had remembered to wear a hood.  But bystanders dwindled as Bard rounded the last few corners of the streets leading to the city walls.    

The sick ward that Maude maintained was a long, low building, originally used for storing barley in the winter months.  When the sickness had begun to spread in earnest, Bard had ordered the building cleared and repurposed as a holding-place for the ill.  For that was really no more than it was: the sickness resisted all medicine, and so Maude and her healers merely fed and clothed the wretches in their final days, and took in those whose families shunned them, for fear of catching the illness themselves. 

He allowed his shoulders to slump as he looked up at its bulk, squinting a bit against errant sleet.  Intermittent torches guttered along the plain-faced stone of its windowless façade.  He pushed open the heavy servant’s door, resettling his soaked, clinging cloak farther back from his shoulders as he stepped inside, blinking in the sudden dimness.  A low level of muted murmuring filled the space.  White-linen-bedecked women, most of whom older even than Bard himself, moved calmly inbetween the sick and dying that lay in serried ranks upon the floor. The sickness tended not to touch the very old and the very young.  Bard had yet to decide whether posterity would be thankful for this.

He stopped a healer by the arm, asking lowly, “Is Maude here?”

“Yes, your majesty.  Just there.”  She pointed.  Bard followed her arm across the room, where he dimly made out a round figure crouching against the back wall.

“My thanks.”  He relinquished his hold and began a slow path along the edges of the ward, lifting his boots carefully as he stepped around limbs and bedclothes packed wall-to-wall. His left hand found smooth stone and used it to steady himself. 

“How goes it?” he greeted softly as he approached Maude.  She straightened smoothly, brushing down a white butcher’s apron, then making the same movement through frizzy hair. 

“It goes, my lord.  It goes.”  She glanced down at the man she had been tending.  Cheekbones stood out like mountain ridges on a face as white as her apron.  “I just sent Elric to you not half an hour ago.  Is something the matter?”

“No, no.”  After a moment, Bard managed to push aside his sodden cloak and draw out Thranduil’s herbs.  “Merely sought to bring you these.”

She reached out and took them from him, turning the linen over in her hands, taking a pinch of the herb in two fingers and bringing it delicately to her nose.  “What does the Elvenking say of this batch?”

Against all his efforts, Bard’s frown had returned.  A hand drifted to the place where Thranduil’s letter rested at his breast, the paper crinkling just slightly at his touch.  “He says to be hopeful,” he replied. 

Maude’s aging, round face rearranged itself into a smile like a duck parting its was through bog ferns.  “Fourth time’s the charm, is it not?”  Her gaze followed the path of Bard’s hand.  Her brows contracted.  “My lord-- if I may?”

Without warning, her hand shot out and grabbed Bard’s fingers, turning them over in her grasp the same way she had inspected the herbs.  She pressed her thumbs into his fingernails, watching the blood rush away and back again.  Her grip was cold and brittle.  Bard pulled away as quickly as he could.

“Your nails are blue,” she said. 

“It is bitterly cold outside,” Bard replied.

Maude seemed to quiver as she looked up into Bard’s unflinching gaze.  She tried once more.  “My lord--”

“Maude.”  Bard laid a hand on her shoulder.  Uncomfortable, he moved it down her arm.  “Think nothing of it.  I have merely been at the mercy of the elements for too long today.” 

“As you say, my lord.”  She moved uneasily beneath his hand.  Bard let it fall.  “I shall send Elric when I have news.”  She tucked the herbs into a pocket. 

“Thank you.”  Extraneous words lingered on Bard’s tongue-- meaningless expressions of gratitude for the thankless work she performed daily in the ward; a faint sense of indebtedness that clung to his soul like a frightened child-- but Maude had already turned her back, leaving him to make his way out of the cramped ward and back into the dreary afternoon.

Bard kept his hands firmly hidden under his cloak for the walk back to the manor, but he paused under the stone arch that led into its courtyard, for the moment shielded from the weather.  He put his back to freezing stone and glanced left and right.  The courtyard was, for the moment, deserted.

He jerked his hand free of the folds of his sodden cloak and held it up to the watery daylight, spreading his fingers wide and turning them this way and that.  He bent his knuckles and examined his nails, as Maude had.  A slight hint of blue tinged his nailbeds. 

He clenched his fist and went inside.

* * *

Bard pulled the straps tighter around the girth of his horse, the beast emitting a small whinny as he did.  He glanced over his shoulder at Bain, hovering nervously, the gangly height he had not yet grown into almost eclipsing his own. 

“Who shall watch Sigrid and Tilda?”  Bard asked, turning back to the horse to keep his damning smile hidden.

“Sigrid’s older than me, da!” Bain whined in a most unbecoming tone in a young man.  “Please let me come!  I know how to shoot, I can defend myself!  I won’t be a burden, I _promise_ \--”

Bard whirled, his grin plain, and enveloped his son in a rough hug.  “I know,” he said into his ear.  He stepped back and let his smile wash over Bain as the young man slowly realized that his father had been having him on.

Bain huffed.  “You weren’t going to make me stay, were you?”

“No, son.”  Bard ruffled Bain’s hair.  His son’s hand trailed after it, smoothing the damage done by Bard.  “It’s high time for you to pay your respects to Thranduil, and I don’t know when a better opportunity will arise.  And Sigrid was always more mature than you.  She can hold court on her own here for a few days while you and I get this settled.”

Bain swung himself into the saddle of the horse he had dragged down Dale’s main street in his haste to intercept his father before his departure.  “Do you think we’ll find them, da?”

Bard followed suit, urging his horse ahead of Elric and the five men he had collected for their venture. 

“Thranduil will,”  he assured his son.

They milled just inside the city’s main gates until the last guardsman had securely mounted.  Then Bard gave a signal to the gatekeeper, and they rode out, headed west for the river, which they would follow until they reached the treeline.

Bard had traveled the road to Thranduil’s halls once before, a few months after Dain had fulfilled his fallen cousin’s promise of payment, a newly re-acquired necklace of emeralds weighing his breast pocket.  They were the relics of his ancestor, and they had been about to become payment for the services that Thranduil had rendered him and his people in their hour of greatest need-- a paltry repayment, but a payment nevertheless. 

Since then, the way had changed.

The rocky hills and gradually-leveling plains that the river ran through were as they always had been, but the small path that greeted them at the treeline was not.  It still wended its faint northwestern curve, and the same trees lined it, and the same faint glimpses of life in the underbrush could still be discerned.  Yet some intangible quality was different.  A shiver ran up Bard’s shoulder blades whenever he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.  He glanced frequently at Bain, riding to his left, entranced by the foliage he had always been forbidden from playing in as a child.  Though he half expected nervous whinnies and snorts, his horse was perfectly at ease, as were those of the guardsmen behind him.

He ducked under a low-hanging branch and rubbed a hand along his horse’s side.  After a time, the trail bottlenecked, and they assumed a single file, their pace slowing.  Bard peered up into the canopy, his attempts to judge the time stymied by its thickness. 

Truly, Mirkwood was not named as such for nothing.

And then the underbrush shuddered collectively like a barrel of fish being upended and disgorged ten elves, bows fully drawn and aimed, completely surrounding their party.  

Bard reined in his mount and flung out a hand to stop Bain.  The rest of his men followed suit. 

“Peace,” Bard called.  Unsure of whom to address, he twisted in his saddle to encompass them all with his words.  “We are traveling from Dale to seek an audience with your king.  I am Bard, and this is my son, Bain.  These are our guardsmen.  We want no trouble.” 

They were weighed and measured under the hard gazes of the ten elves.  After a handful of uncertain heartbeats, the elves released the tension in their bowstrings and lowered their weapons.  “Forgive us, your lordship,” one said, stepping out of the underbrush and onto the path.  “Caution is the watchword of our days of late.  I recognize you now, and my lord Thranduil will be well-pleased to receive you.”

The rest of the elves poured forth onto the path and walked two abreast before them, leading the way deeper into the forest.  Bard glanced back at the guardsmen and beckoned for them to follow. 

* * *

The men lay sleeping around a large fire like spokes on a wheel, exhausted from the day's travel.  His son was among them, sprawled out in his bedroll, seemingly at peace.  When Thranduil had agreed to lead them into the forest and aid in their search for the missing travelers from Dale, he had insisted that they leave their horses behind.  They had rested until sunrise the previous night in Thranduil’s domain and set out at dawn that morning. 

Bard shifted his gaze to the Elvenking.  For the past hour he had walked slow, dragging circles around Bard’s sleeping guardsmen, no more than a few feet’s gap between him and their bedrolls.  His cloak slithered intermittently over a fallen branch or moist leaf, but otherwise, his passing made no sound.  By Bard’s count, it was his twenty-sixth time round the campsite.

Bard waited until Thranduil next drew near, wary of disturbing the resting men with a raised voice.  “Will you not sleep?” he asked softly. 

Thranduil stopped, his hands clasped neatly behind his back, and reversed his course, his circle of the camp uncompleted.  “Elves do not require sleep, Dragonslayer.”

“Surely you will not pace the whole night away?”

“That was my intention.”  Thranduil made a vague gesture with a beringed hand.  He now crossed back and forth in front of where Bard sat with maddening slowness.   “You should be resting.” 

“Can’t.  Not with you pacing.”

A slight quirk of amusement was betrayed by Thranduil’s mouth. “Then it seems we are at an impasse.  I pace because I have agreed to keep watch over you and your kin, and guard you from the dangers of my realm as you search for your lost compatriots.  This motion serves that end better than if I were to remain a still and unmoving guardian.”

Bard grunted vaguely.  If Thranduil was determined in his pacing, as he professed, he truly would get no rest that night.  He leaned against the trunk of a tree, it’s bark rough enough to be felt through his leather jerkin and linen shit, and let his head fall back to thud dully against the wood.

Thranduil resumed his rounds.  
  
Bard closed his eyes and squirmed a bit.  The hard, slightly damp ground was not very conducive to his comfort.  He clasped his hands on his lap, eyes still firmly shut, and willed sleep to come, focusing on the soreness in joints unaccustomed to riding and his own mental exhaustion.  

From his left, a soft  _slither-slither_ ,  _slither-slither_ sounded.  Bard cracked open an eye, looking for Thranduil's figure, but found only darkness.  He cast about and saw the elf lingering at the edges of their camp to his far right.  Bard's eyes widened slightly.  

No matter how he tried, he could not close his eyes again.  

A guardsman rolled over in his sleep.  

Another snored loudly.  

One coughed.  

The fire burned on.  

Thranduil paced.

The forest remained, after that, utterly, oppressively silent.  Bard curled his fingers over each other.  At one point, he put a hand to the ground to lever himself up, intent upon checking on his son.  But he froze, the movement aborted, unable to deny his son his rest just for the mere sake of his own unfounded paranoia.  

And so Bard decided to disturb the one person who still shared his wakefulness.  “Tell me a tale, my lord Thranduil,” he said to him suddenly, his sight unfocused among the mottled darkness of the forest around them.

Thranduil’s pacing slackened for a  moment. “You are too old for children’s stories, are you not?”

“I did not ask for a children’s story.  I asked for a tale.”

“What kind of a tale, King Bard?  Of sorrow?  Of grief?  Of hardship?” Thranduil stopped, and their campfire spit and popped into the silence.  “I do not think you would care for the stories I could tell you.”  

Bard dragged a handful of grass from the damp earth at his side.  “Speak of anything you like as long as it is not _nothing_.”  He shredded the grass savagely.  “Say anything to fill the unnatural silence of your accursed wood, or I assure you, I will be mad ere this night is out.” 

Bard threw splinters of grass away from himself and looked up.  Thranduil ceased his maddening circles around the camp and now approached Bard with the same deliberate step.  He had probably angered the elf.  Bard found he did not care.  Instead, he sought another patch of grass with which to fill his hand. 

The darkness resolved into the shape of Thranduil crouched a mere arm’s length front of him, balanced perfectly on the balls of his feet.  Something may or may not have flickered into movement inbetween the trees visible over the elf's shoulder.

“Many of my own people have been undone by these woods,” Thranduil said.  The low notes of his voice carried perfectly in the scant space between them.  “Do you think yourself stronger than them?”

“You would not have agreed to lead me and my men here if you thought we were not,” Bard returned, his eyes having trouble focusing on the Elvenking’s face in the low light and sudden proximity.

“What I think matters little to the nightmares that have encroached here in recent years.  The things that dwell in these shadows do not merely detect your fear as natural predators do-- they _feed_ off of it.  Creatures that will hunt you not for sustenance but for the chase alone now mingle with their more noble brethren.  What sway think you I command over such monstrosities?  Would I not have long ago banished them, were it within my power?”

Thranduil surged upward, the muscles in his thighs propelling him to his feet in a sudden, violent motion.  “You now bear witness to my greatest shame, King Bard.  Look around you!”  He spread his arm, encompassing the forest with crimson silk that billowed wide around him.  Bard’s eyes darted to the dark lumps of his son and the sleeping guardsman, but they were all unmoving, deaf in sleep to the Elvenking’s sudden outburst.  “My own kingdom lies in decay and desecration.  Where once bloomed beauty and starlight now remains only corruption and corpulence.”

The robe swirled around him like eddies in a pool disturbed by a pebble as he rounded on Bard, a figure of coiled power and barely-restrained anger.  Involuntarily, Bard cringed away from the Elvenking, his shoulder blades pressing up against hard bark.  The campfire cast Thranduil’s profile as a featureless, black shadow outlined in orange, the hilt of his sword glinting.  Ever-so-slowly Bard forced himself to unclench the fistful of grass in his right hand.  Crumpled blades and sweaty dirt skittered across the ground. 

“Then tell me,” Bard began, his voice no more than a hoarse whisper that choked him before he could get his words out.  “Tell me,” he tried again, stronger this time, “of those days.  A tale of beauty and starlight.”

Thranduil’s arm fell back to his sides with the slow motion of a predatory bird folding its wings. 

“Tell me a tale of the Greenwood,” Bard said, his voice strongest yet as he straightened, the tree no longer supporting his back.  One knee came up, and he laid his arm across it, putting his chin in the crook of his elbow.  It felt like baring his belly to a ravaging bear. 

Around them, the only sound was that of snoring men. 

Bard tracked Thranduil with his eyes as well as he could-- watched him take a halting step forward in his direction, and then another, until he was nearly toe-to-toe with Bard’s outstretched leg.  And then he folded himself downward onto the forest floor, kneeling mere inches away from Bard’s boot.    

His eyes had adjusted a bit more fully, and now he could make out the curious tilt of Thranduil’s head, the downward cast of grey eyes.  A great sigh rattled out of Thranduil like wind blown through a copse of trees still clinging to autumn leaves.

Bard’s hand twitched.  He pressed it firmly to his thigh to still it.  “Tell me,” he said quietly. 

Thranduil’s voice, when he spoke, was neutral and passionless. “…of what, Dragonslayer?”

Bard raised his eyebrows briefly, barely containing a sigh of relief.  “What does one normally discuss when one talks of a forest?”

Thranduil pondered this a moment.  “The Silvan elves talk often of starlight,” he said. 

“Not much of that to be had tonight."  Bard looked pointedly above them to the dense, sky-blocking canopy above them.  "I was thinking more along the lines of ‘trees’ myself,” he mused.  He snuck a furtive glance at Thranduil, gauging for a reaction to his attempted lightheartedness.   

“You wish me to speak of a topic as rich and broad as trees?  I warn you, Dragonslayer, it is a subject that will take us all night.”

“So be it.  Couldn’t sleep if I tried.”  It was no lie.

Finally, Thranduil smiled.  It was his own brand of the expression: a small movement, different than the condescending grin and lowered chin he reserved for Dain, or the glinting mischief Bard sometimes glimpsed when Thranduil achieved an apparent victory, whether it be over the bartering table or in the aftermath of battle.  Thranduil gave away this smile by only the very corners of his mouth, tilted sharply upward, his lips pressed together, as though to contain whatever emotion that had risen strongly enough within him to require expression through physical means.

“Very well.  Shall I tell you of the precise shade of green that gave this forest its former namesake?  Or perhaps of the small insects that used to prowl the leaves in summer?  Wings of jewels, they had.  Every glint of sunlight that filtered through the canopy was a spark from their facets.”

Bard let his eyes drift shut to the smooth darkness of Thranduil’s unchanging baritone.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rushed the ending of this a bit but I needed to get it published, as I won't have time to write later this evening. I'll probably come back and tinker with it tomorrow, but for now, have it as-is. No letters this time, but they'll be back in chapter three. If anyone's wondering, my coffeshop!AU is going on hold until I finish this (unless I end up really, REALLY needing a break)-- the headspaces required to write in their respective tones are just too disparate for me to easily switch back and forth between them.


	3. Early Summer 2943; Early Spring 2956

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must warn for a short scene of horror/blood/gore/what-have-you in this chapter. It's small and I don't intend on having a lot of repeat situations in future chapters, for which reason I did not feel it necessary to add a warning to the work itself, but it is worth mentioning. For those who wish to skip it, simply head to the page break and you'll be fine, although you'll miss a good deal of plot/exposition for future chapters. 
> 
> (Further author's notes at the end, because I am a narcissistic bastard who freely wields the deadly power of her ao3 soapbox)

A heavy weight fell upon Bard’s shoulder.  For a moment, the weight was a nameless creature, white and bulging and multi-limbed and screaming and--

And then Bard's eyes flew open.  His son knelt at his side, a gentle hand shaking him. "C'mon, Da, wake up.  King Thranduil says we're moving on."

Bard blinked several times and wordlessly accepted his son's outstretched hand.  He let him help him to his feet and brushed the dirt from his pants, discreetly stretching his aching back while rolling a crick out of his neck. As soon as Bain turned back to the camp Bard gulped several deep breaths of moist wood air.  

He scoured the camp for Thranduil and found him at the edge of the treeline, his eyes focused somewhere deep in the foliage, a hand hovering over his sheathed silver sword.  Bard wandered over to where the guardsmen were packing their kit and eating hasty rations.  Lying among his and Bain's things was his quiver.  He ran the fletching of an arrow between two fingers and then shouldered the whole thing, readjusting its strap several times.  Bain stood beside him, a matching quiver already over his own shoulder, digging around in his pack.

"Sleep well?" Bard asked. 

"Well enough.  Ground's pretty hard."  Bain held out some bread to his father.

Bard took it, raising his eyebrows.  "The life of a prince has spoiled you."     

He laughed with his hands on his hips. "If you'd allowed my sisters and I to play in the forest when we were younger maybe I'd be used to it by now, eh?"

"Let you loose, with your sisters, in Mirkwood?" he muttered.  “You would have burned it down."  Bard lifted a chin in Thranduil's direction.  "I don't think our friend the Elvenking would have appreciated that."

"Hardly.  These trees are far too wet to burn."

"I'm sure you would have found a way."  He took a seat on the forest floor.  It was not the cleanest of resting places, but his stomach no longer accepted food eaten while standing.  A mark of his age.  With one hand holding his hair out of the way, Bard bit into the bread, chewing thoroughly.

Bain's feet shuffled the dirt next to him.  “I was talking with some of the men last night.”

“Oh?” Another hunk of bread was shoved into his mouth.  Surprisingly, he was ravenous.  

“Apparently Elric’s wife was among the travelers.”

The bread went hard and half-chewed down his throat.  “Oh.” He felt his son’s heavy gaze upon his back like a physical weight.  Crumbs fell to the dirt as he turned the crust of his bread over and over in his hands.  “He did not mention that.”

“He’s worried.  I told him that the Elvenking would find her for us, but I don’t think he believed me.” More dirt moved under Bain's boots.  "I don't think _I_   believed me."

Bard reached out to the only part of his son he could reach-- his kneecap-- and squeezed it.  The reassurance he had prepared in his mind to give Bain fell away, replaced by Thranduil's dire words of the previous night.  He pushed some offending bread crumbs farther down his throat and gathered himself. "King Thranduil would not have lead us here without reason.  He believes there is hope.  So should you, and so should Elric."  

"I suppose."  

Under his own power Bard stood.  "What happened to the Bain who used to believe my fairy stories about bog monsters and lake-water stealers?"

"Da, I'm far too old--"

"Only joking, Bain.  Only joking.  Come.  String your bow.  Make ready."  

From the corner of his eye Bard watched Bain do as he bade, testing the string with a quick flick of his finger.  It was a habit he had gotten from Bard himself.  He smiled to see it.

Their way was less shady in the light of the morning as they set off.  Thranduil assumed his position from the previous day, rambling far ahead of the main group.  Bard was careful to keep him in sight-- as careful as Thranduil was to stay in sight, he suspected.  Little stirred around them save the irregular crunching noises the guardsmen's heavy boots made as they walked. 

After an hour or so spent trailing the main group, Bard redoubled his steps and caught up with Thranduil.  They shared the silence side by side for a time.

No obstacles impeded the glide of Thranduil's tread.  Thinking back over the past day and a half, Bard could not recall a single time the Elvenking had even so much as snagged an errant leaf.  Mere mortals, however, were more easily stymied.  Bard did his damndest to keep up.     
     
Out of the blue Thranduil slowed, but not out of accommodation for Bard.  He twisted as he walked, indicating Bain with a nod of his head, comfortably trading soft conversation with a couple of guards.  "Mirkwood is no place to bring a child, Dragonslayer." 

Bard paused to push a low-hanging branch out of the way and temporarily fell out of step.  "Bain can handle himself," he replied as he drew level once more.  "In all honesty, I wasn't expecting such a..."  He kneaded the bridge of his nose with two fingers, seeking an adjective that would not come.  "Such a journey," he finished.  He swallowed.  "This is his seventeenth summer, you know." 

"Yes."

"Then why do you call him a child?"  
  
"By the reckoning of my people he is barely more than a babe."  Thranduil reached out to a passing tree and trailed his fingertips over its bark.  As soon as he moved on, Bard copied the motion behind his back.  He rubbed at the ordinary moss that came away between his nails in curiosity before dropping it to the forest floor.  A quick glance to the rear assured him that his son and the guardsmen were still in sight.

"And what would that make me?"

Summer flowers braided upon Thranduil’s brow dipped slightly.  “Young, like a sapling; but old like the soil it gathers its strength from."  

"I cannot decide if you flatter or insult me."

"Consider it both."

Hair that smelled of smoke fell into Bard's eyes.  He brushed it away so he could see, and caught the tail end of a look from Thranduil that was almost fond.  Bard supposed there were worse things one could be likened to than soil. 

They kept their silence after that.  Bain walked with them, for a time, before growing bored of their reticence.  The ambient light of Mirkwood lessened, and their footsteps blurred the miles.  

Late in the day Thranduil held a hand out to the side and halted.  "Wait here," he told Bard, disappearing through an opening between two trees into a darkened clearing.  Its murk was impenetrable.  Bard shifted his weight from foot to foot.  A hand tightened on his bow.  To avoid alarming the guardsmen, he did not draw it.  

Thranduil soon reappeared with shoulders set in twin lines of stiff muscle.

"What is it?" Bard barked.  Hard fear clenched in his heart.  He brushed past Thranduil, glancing off yielding silk, stepping over a log lying like a gate between the two trees.

"Do not let your son see," Thranduil whispered as he passed.

Soft squelches sounded under his boots as Bard entered a small, dark clearing.  When he lifted them, their soles were dark and sticky.  A horrid stench hung in the stagnant air, equal parts blood and human waste and decay.  He brought a sleeve to his nose and held it there.

Body parts littered the clearing.  An arm, severed from the elbow, lay just a few inches from his boot.  He shied away like a startled horse and put a hand out against a nearby tree. It, too, came away bloody. 

Bard’s eyes darted over the scene as he took mincing steps forward, compelled through sheer horror to take it all in.  Clothing and supplies scattered like spilled wine amongst the remains of the dead.  Nothing moved.  He held his ragged breath for a few moments and listened: there were no moans, no scrapes, no small sounds of the injured or dying. 

After the battle before the gates of Erebor, when the eagles had cleared the skies and what remained of the folk of Laketown had returned to Dale, Bard had rounded up straggling archers and gone out into the streets to clear the bodies.  There had been mutilation and blood, and sick stenches, and sights that made his gorge rise.  But they were  _clean_ wounds-- clean not in the way of their execution but clean in their purposefulness, clean in the mercy of the necessity of quick death so that the enemy could move on and slay more souls. 

The bodies before him bore no such traces.  How long had the travelers from Dale taken to die?  Did they die in pieces, watching their limbs being torn from them?  Did they die in agony?  Did they die screaming for mercy? For  _help_? 

Bard began to back away.  He nearly tripped over his own feet as he retreated to Thranduil's side, grasping his shoulder for support.  Blood smeared over grey silk robes.

“Where is Bain?” he croaked.  He wrenched his neck around to forcibly tear his gaze from the carnage. 

“I ordered your men to remain behind.  Your son is with them.”

“Good.  I don’t want him near here.”  Bain had seen much already in his short life: the death of his mother, the wrath of a dragon, and the aftermath of the now-infamous battle.  If Bard could be a blindfold he would wrap himself around his son’s eyes and hide it all from him.  In this, at least, he had the power to fulfill that role.

Thranduil gave him a sharp look, the subtle wideness of his eyes tempering its bite.  “I warned you of shadows, Dragonslayer.”  His gaze flitted over Bard's face, finally coming to rest unnervingly at his forehead.  

“You did not warn me of  _this_ ,” he hissed, a finger levered towards the clearing. 

“Would that I have known, the knowledge would have been yours.” Thranduil dipped his head. His hand clenched once at his side.  Its sudden movement drew Bard’s attention like a fly to honey.  “I must return to my halls,” Thranduil continued, already turning away.  “Steps must be enacted ere this blight be allowed to fester upon my already-decaying land.”

“And what blight would that be?  Tell me, my lord Thranduil--  _what did this?_ ”

“I do not know.” 

"How can you  _not know_?"

Silence and silver hair were all that Thranduil presented to him as answer.  Bard fought the frustration rising within him by gritting his teeth and catching Thranduil’s bloody shoulder with his clean hand. “What about the bodies?”

Thranduil glared purposefully at Bard’s hand, but said nothing of it.  Bard did not let go.  “Beyond lie not bodies but the food which shall nourish the very things which have made mince meat of them.  Let the dead lie.”

“The wife of one of my guardsmen is among the slain," Bard murmured.

“If he wishes the last memory of his beloved to be that of her mutilated remains, by all means-- allow him to enter.  But I would counsel against it.” The wideness of Thranduil’s eyes had now subsided.  The Elvenking moved forward, and Bard's hand slipped away.   The guardsmen parted like waves of grain before him.  "We must leave this place immediately," he called, encompassing all in his command.   

Elric was among the first to accost Bard.  Dirty knuckles held his scrunched hat tightly.  "What does he mean?  Have you found them?  Where are we going?"  

No use beating around the bush.  They must not see.   _Bain_  must not see.  "They're dead," he told him.  "They are all dead."  

Whispers spread like dominoes fell.  Elric dropped his hat.  "My lord--?"

"I am sorry."  And he was. He forced himself to meet the misery in Elric's eyes.  Bard felt hollow echoes of the day his wife had drowned spreading through his gut and mixing with images of the slain travelers, and he was bitterly thankful for his sparse breakfast.  "I am sorry," he said again, knowing its emptiness through the surety of memory.  "We must move on.  Follow King Thranduil."  

No one moved but Bain, coming to stand by his father's side.  He made as if to go around him, towards the clearing, but Bard caught his elbow.

"Ow! Da, let go, I want to know--"

" _You will go no farther."_    Harshness tore apart every syllable of the command.  The set of his brow was his crown and he was their king, and they obeyed.

Elric put a hand over the back of his neck and blinked away tears.  One by one, the guardsmen gathered around and led him back the way they had come. 

* * *

The chill of the cold mountain air that bothered at Bard's cheeks ceased as Thranduil came to stand by his side. 

“I’m not sure how to thank you for your aid this past winter."  Bard’s hand came up-- he knew not for what purpose.  Perhaps it was with a mind to rest it on the balustrade.  Perhaps he wished to brush an errant hair from his eye.  But perhaps it was an involuntary movement towards Thranduil-- for indeed, he half turned to him, now; completely sheltered from the wind by Thranduil’s height and width, and close enough that wisps of Thranduil’s hair blew over his nose.  "I do not have the words.”

His hand clenched mid-air before falling back to his side.  Mottled grey and purple cobbles lay under their feet.  He looked into Thranduil’s wide colorless eyes, and his gaze lingered there.

“Your gratitude has always been sufficient,” Thranduil said into the space between them. 

Bard pressed his lips together and nodded, a forced smile stretching them thin.  “It be a shame Girion left behind no other heirlooms for me to offer you.” 

“’Tis indeed a pity.  An emerald crown would have made a striking companion to your ancestor's necklace, wouldn’t you say?”

Bard’s smile became genuine, for a moment, and mirth crinkled the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes.  “In that case, I shall commission the dwarves at once.” 

“Do not waste your breath.  I would sail West long before the dwarves ever even agreed upon the price for anything intended for the king of the woodland realm.”

Breath misted in the freezing air as Bard laughed.  Stillness enveloped them in their sheltered corner of Dale's ramparts, unbroken until Thranduil deliberately raised his arms, exposing the maroon lining of his heavy winter raiments.  He laid his hands to rest on Bard’s elbows, the space between them marginal at best, their feet shuffling together on the stone.   Not a hint of wind that was not their breathing passed between them.

Cold pressure met Bard’s hairline.  He could not have kept his eyes from sliding shut under Thranduil’s lips if his life had depended on it.

"I would linger here if it were within my power," Thranduil breathed against his hair.  

“You could.”

"You know that I cannot.  Do not deceive yourself unnecessarily."

Bard did not open his eyes again until the touch was gone from his elbows, and the biting mountain wind once again blew against his exposed ears, and Thranduil was nowhere to be seen.  Only then did he head with slow steps back down the parapet.  He knew that Thranduil's folk awaited his return; that his guards were saddling their fine elven horses even as they tarried upon the battlements, and that this was not to last.  Only as that thought dropped like a stone into his mind did his steps turn to a run, taking the stairs three at at time.  If he was quick, he would catch up to Thranduil before he took his retinue back to Mirkwood, and he would have a proper goodbye.

He arrived before the west gate completely out of breath.  Thranduil sat astride an iron-grey horse, looking to the lowering arc of the sun, two guards reigning in eager mounts behind him. 

“Wait!”  He jogged to a halt at the side of Thranduil's mount, placing a hand on its well-groomed shoulder, inches away from fine leather knee-high riding boots.  Each exertion-forced breath stabbed his lungs.  He looked to Thranduil's stoic guards and kept their presence in mind as he asked, “When can Dale expect you again?”

Thranduil shifted the reins in his hands, craning his neck to look down.  “My lord Celeborn’s company should now be making its way up the Anduin with the supplies I have promised as relief for the hunger Dale suffers in this harsh winter.  If the ice floes prove navigable, expect us in a fortnight.”

“I will look to your return.”

Something in Thranduil's expression shuttered. “Look to your people.  They need your care far more than I.”  Abruptly, Bard stepped away.  He put a hand to his chest and extended it towards Thranduil in the way of the elves, using his bowed head as an excuse to hide the bitterness that must surely show on his face.  Thranduil shifted the reins again and reciprocated the gesture.

Bard watched them go until the curve of the hill Dale rested upon hid their silhouettes, and then he lingered in the street until the tightness in his chest became too much. 

You can lock away a great many things in a crimson chest, but not memories.  You cannot store memories, no matter now precious, no matter how fleeting. 

He was beginning to understand now what it was like to be an elf. 

The need to touch the place where Thranduil had kissed him was a physical itch worse than that of any half-healed scab.  Instead of scratching he grabbed his arrows and quiver from their resting place in his rooms, in and out the door in half a minute, and went as quickly as he could to the archery range, before the infernal itch overcame his self-control completely.

Fortunately, the range was deserted.  Harsh words for banishing any guardsmen unlucky enough to have been practicing that day ran amok in Bard’s mind.  He slung the quiver over his back, relishing its familiar tug, and took the bow in his left hand, running a single finger under the length of the bowstring.  He closed his eyes and breathed in so sharply the air burned his lungs.  He drew and released.

_Thud_.  An arrow hit its mark.  Bard opened his eyes briefly to ascertain its accuracy, then shut them again.

_Thud.  Thud._   Two more blind shots.

_Thud._

Strands of hair--

_Thud.  Thud._

Warm hands--

_Thud.  Thud.  Thud._

Cold lips--

A silhouette as three riders rode away--

_Thud, whshhhh--_

Bard’s eyes flew open.  Fifteen arrows still remained in his quiver, but he shouldered the bow and went to retrieve the one that had missed, and then he repeated the process.    After six quiverfulls of arrows his fingers began to come away bloody from each shot, the bowstring spitting drops of red as it vibrated after each release.  He grit his teeth through the cuts and kept shooting.

It was at this point that the indistinct sound of  woman's voice raised somewhere in the manor reached him.  Perhaps the maid.  He fingered the fletching of his next arrow, listening for a moment, watching the streaks his blood left on the tawny feathers.  The woman’s cry came again, clearer, and he recognized the voice.

“Da? Da!” Sigrid was calling.  His head snapped up, hastily returning the arrow to its quiver, wiping his hand on his pants.  “Da, are you out here?” she called again, much closer.

“Here, Sigrid!” he replied.  He hastened downrange to retrieve his arrows. 

Sigrid met him amongst the painted circles of hay, hands on hips, a small smile on her pretty mouth.  “Where have you been, da?  I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

Bard shrugged.  “Just shooting.”  He yanked an arrow out of a target, spraying hay.

“So I see.” Sigrid stepped closer, peering around Bard at his tunic.  “Is-- is that  _blood_?”

Bard shoved the arrow into the quiver and laid his right hand flush against his thigh.  With his left, he readjusted the strap, looking down at Sigrid’s worried gaze, remorse and foolishness slowly creeping into his chest. 

“I forgot my glove today, darling.  Not to worry.  I’ll see Maude straight away,” he placated.

Sigrid’s gaze lingered at the blood speckled like spittle on Bard’s tunic.  “Okay, da,” she said slowly.  “Dinner’s ready when you get back.  Don’t be too long, alright?”

“I won’t.” Bard smiled at Sigrid.  She gave a watery one in return, and started towards the manor.  Bard went for the next arrow.  From behind, he heard her steps returning suddenly, and he spun, just in time to catch her on her toes as she leaned up to kiss his cheek. 

“Not too long, remember!” she reminded him, gone again as quickly as she had come.  He gazed after her, his brow clearing, flexing fingers which were now very clearly beginning to make their pain felt.  Perhaps he really would go see Maude, and at least be able to look Sigrid in the eye across the dinner table that night.  Mindful of his hand, he gathered the last of the arrows before unstringing his bow and bending his steps towards the city infirmary.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god. I reread this and realized that I've been falling through Barduil hell for so long I've finally arrived at melodrama. Damn it. I've been editing this for the past two hours and I have literally had "In The Woods Somewhere" by Hozier on repeat the whole time. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to listen to it again. In my defense, it really fits the tone and mood I was aiming for for this chapter. I definitely need a break from all this angst. After I update my coffeeshop!au I'll come back with something decidedly more cheerful. I'm thinking Girion's necklace? Maybe? Is that enough of a tidbit to entice you guys? That being said, I owe a couple of apologies:
> 
> 1) I said there would be letters in this chapter; again, I lied. They'll be back next chapter. Promise. (Raise your hand if anyone but me is interested in them)
> 
> 2) I also said I'd be managing a chapter a week as an update schedule-- as you can see by the post date of this chapter, that will not be tenable for me at this time. School is picking up and updates will more likely become biweekly; at the most, monthly. (Probably within the next three weeks for chapter four, seeing as I plan on taking a break to update my other fic.) If I ever go longer than a month without an update, do me a favor and come stab me with a pencil over on tumblr, okay? I'm probably just lost in the Barduil tag.


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